This invention relates to a dispenser for collapsible tubes containing toothpaste, shaving cream, or similar pastes, and in particular, a dispenser for holding a collapsible tube of paste and mechanically dispensing the paste.
Heretofore, there have been several dispensers for collapsible paste tubes. These dispensers have taken many shapes and types of mechanical operations. From the earliest to the more recent patents covering these devices, the similarity between them is in the squeezing of the tube to remove most or all of the paste. To accomplish the squeezing of all of the paste out of a tube, the prior art uses some type of mechanical roller means to travel along the tube. The U.S. Patents to Mirka, U.S. Pat. No. 3,417,902, Forman, U.S. Pat. No. 3,853,243, and Drancourt, U.S. Pat. No. 4,030,636, shows paste dispensers with rollers which travel over a tube to squeeze out paste. The most interesting of these patents in relation to the present invention is the Mirka patent, where the roller is moved by a bar gear with teeth which engage teeth on the roller to move it forward. Other mechanical means for squeezing a tube are disclosed in Glaser, U.S. Pat. No. 1,882,358, and Van Bussel, U.S. Pat. No. 3,915,342, These patents use movable plates to squeeze the tube.